With the first sunny day of the year, and coming after weeks of continual rain, the DocBike charity knew there would be a lot of bikes out on the road this weekend – and they were right!
As hundreds of bikers enjoyed the sunshine, so the DocBikes were out across the whole of the county. With lots of friendly smiles and waves from fellow bikers, there was just enough time for a bite of lunch at West Bay before being tasked to the aid of a fellow biker.
The springtime brings with it a number of factors that increase the risk for bikers, all of which can be guarded against if you know what to look for.
Low Sun
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- When you can see your shadow far in front (or behind you), you know that the sun is low, which could make it hard for other road users to see you. Being aware that other vehicles may pull out in front of you, pull across your path or more worryingly, drive into the back of you gives you that edge to react in time.
Driver Expectations
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- After months of wet, cold and rainy weather, other road users haven’t been used to looking out for motorbikes. When they’re looking for a gap in traffic to pull out into, for the last few months, there hasn’t been a motorbike in the gap – now there may be!
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- There are surprisingly few car vs bicycle crashes in the Netherlands, simply because other road users are used to looking out for bicycles there. When it comes to motorbikes in the UK, the introduction of motorcycles in the springtime leads to more SMIDSY (sorry mate, I didn’t see you) crashes than we might expect to see throughout the rest of the year.
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- As with the low sun, being aware that other road users might pull out in front of you, turn right across your path if they’re heading towards you, or pull an unexpected U-turn when you’re overtaking queued traffic may just give you those vital seconds you need to react in time to prevent needing the help of the DocBikes or air ambulance.
Rusty Riders
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- Having the modesty to recognise that we’ve not ridden much over the past few months and the wisdom to take it easy as we get back in the saddle is the message we give to the DocBike clinicians, as even they, as Blue Light riders, get rusty. Whilst riding to an incident today, they knew it was better to arrive a minute or two later than to push themselves too hard until they’d got back into their groove. We think this is great advice for all of us. Being a truly skilful rider is just as much about knowing when to back off the throttle as it is using the available power to your advantage.
We’ve looked at hundreds of bike crashes across the South West over the years and put together a handy booklet on understanding why bike crashes happen and how to avoid it happening to you!. Download yours for free here or order a hard copy from our online shop!
Our research through the Motorcycle Injury Prevention Network (MIPnet) aims to provide you with hard facts and credible information you can trust. DocBike aims never to tell you what to do, but to provide high-quality information with facts to back it up. Find out more about our research through MIPnet here.
